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Reading Belinda Carlisle’s memoir, Lips Unsealed, is like running barefoot on gravel through the punk and rock music scene of the 1980s and ‘90s — it’s at once liberating and painful.

Carlisle, one of the founding members of the iconic five-member girl-band The Go-Go’s and the lead singer on “We Got The Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Vacation,” and other hits, can claim large credit for the group’s sales of 7 million records, several of which went double-platinum and gold. And yet, amazingly, when the group was formed in 1978, neither Carlisle nor her original band-mates were even musicians.

In time, they were rubbing shoulders and eventually performing with the A-listers of the day, including Joey Ramone, The Police, Joe Cocker, John Belushi, Frank Zappa, Ozzy Osbourne, Maurice Gibbs, and Brian Wilson. All the names are here; so too is the sex and drug frenzy of the music scene of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Most compelling of all is Carlisle’s coming to terms with her 30-year daily cocaine habit, which she struggled to hide from her husband and their son. Photo Flashback: Young Superstars of the ’80s

People say that you’ve led a charmed life, a sort of punk-rock version of the American dream.“I’ve had an extraordinary life. So, I always knew that I had a book in me. I have a story to tell that could help a lot of people. I got sober five years ago. I feel that if I can do after a 30-year addiction to drugs and alcohol, anybody can do it.

“My book also deals with weight issues and self-esteem issues. And it’s also for people of my age [Belinda is 51] who feel like their life might be winding down yet they are making such big changes at what a lot of people would consider late in life. So it covers a lot of issues.”

To look at you, no one would suspect that abused alcohol and drugs, specifically cocaine, for 30 years. You are so beautiful and look so healthy.“I am lucky because I seem to have made it through unscathed. I don’t look like I’ve been through the gallows. Hey, I’m lucky that I have a nose! Maybe my memory isn’t as great as it could have been, but I think it’s coming back too. It’s by the grace of God that I’m here.”

Your memoir holds nothing back. Any hesitations about being so frank, especially because you are a wife and a mother?“If there was anything I was uncomfortable with, I didn’t put it the book. Everything that’s in there, I made sure that my husband and my son felt comfortable with too. I’ve always been really protective of my family. But I do think it was painful for them to read. For my husband, he just knew that I had a story to tell, he knew that it could really help people. I know that my son loves the book. And for him, it’s a great anti-drug story.” Photos: Hollywood’s Hardest-Working Moms

For years you kept putting off rehab, saying that you didn’t need it. What made you decide to get clean?“I was at the end of a three-day binge, and I started thinking that I would be found dead in a hotel room of a cocaine overdose, and how humiliating that would be for my son. You can’t be my age and doing the amount of cocaine I was doing. I’ve been sober now for five years.”

Did your husband, Morgan Mason [son of actor James Mason], ever get fed up?“Morgan and I have been living together for 25 years. He went through all of the addiction with me. I don’t think he would have stuck around much longer. At a certain point, my husband just said, ‘You go figure it out because I give up.’ With an addict, that’s the only thing you really can do.”

You also reveal that more than once you seriously considered suicide.“Well, just toward the end, when my cocaine use got so bad, and I was carrying around so much shame, and I just didn’t know a way out of it. I would think about it. I don’t think I ever would have done it. But it crossed my mind quite a few times.”

You tour as a single artist now. Even though you’re clean, are drugs still as much a part of the music scene as they were in the 1980s?“You know something? I have no idea! Because when I’m at concerts, I don’t see drugs around me. People who have been through what I’ve been through, don’t see it. From what I hear, drugs are still everywhere, and cocaine is huge.

You also write about your lifelong struggle with weight and body image. Any advice for girls fighting similar battles?“This obsession with weight is definitely annoying — and it’s definitely sexist. All my life, my name has been mentioned with a description of how much I weighed — I’ve been described as chubby, plump, voluptuous, and now, slim and svelte. Even the good ones — what are considered good — are offensive. The media do not really do that to men. All that stuff, it really, really did my head in when I was young and had that fame. I never had a problem with my weight, the media did.”

I think it’s sweet – but decidedly not punk or cool — that your mother made the dress you wore for The Go-Go’s first Grammy Awards show in 1982.“Oh, I loved that dress! It was like a princess dress — a hot-pink velvet bodice with big, gold-lame puffed sleeves and a big gold-lame matching skirt that kind of hung on the hips from the bodice. My mom made a lot of my stage clothes in the early days. She made me monkey-fur coats and giraffe dresses. I always picked the fabrics and gave her the ideas to design, and she made them for me. My mom is a remarkable seamstress. She is very sweet too. By the way, I’m a sewer too.”

Tell me about your son, Duke. He’s 18 and came out as a gay man. Any advice for parents whose kids come out?“It breaks my heart that a lot of moms and dads might not have such an open mind about this. I hope that my book inspires parents who have turned out their kids or are abusing them because they can’t accept their children’s sexuality. I can’t imagine turning my son out because he is gay.”

You and your husband have been married for 25 years. What was your reaction to the recent news that Al and Tipper Gore separated after 40 years of marriage?“I was sad! So sad! But you know something? I can understand how it happens. Relationships aren’t easy. And 40 years is a long time to be together. Also, when you think that 150 years ago or so, people’s life-spans were only 40 years, you wonder, is it natural for couples to be together that long? We all go through different things; we all grow. My husband and I have totally different interests now than when we first met. I think the secret to our marriage is that we give each other a lot of space, and that ours is not a co-dependent thing. My husband takes care of his happiness. And I don’t depend on anybody to take care of mine except for myself.”

AMG/Parade Digital

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